Published on: April 29, 2023
By Marcelo Pedalino
SAINT BERNARD, Southern Leyte (PIA) -- Two organizations in Brgy. Lipanto of this pacific town stood as beneficiaries of a mussel culture project propagated within its seawaters, a livelihood effort funded by the Environmental Defense Fund, an international non-government organization (NGO).
According to Erma Capilitan, municipal agriculture officer of Saint Bernard, the project beneficiaries are the members of Women and Fishers group in the barangay, comprising a total of 90 individuals, more or less.
On Tuesday, April 25, the local government unit of Saint Bernard, through Mayor Edito Mulig, signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) for the said project, along Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) Provincial Director Fervina Avorque, at the town’s ABC Hall.
Emilie Litsinger, assistant vice president for Asia Pacific of EDF, also affixed her signature to the document on behalf of the international NGO.
Now on its second month, the mussel seedlings, about 500 meters from shoreline, are attached in a rope line dipped about one meter from the sea surface, the rounded culture area marked by floating bouys and solar lights.
Volunteer fishers stationed at a bamboo raft take turns watching the project at night, a member of the fishers association told PIA in a casual conversation, adding that by July this year, they will have their first harvest, weather and other conditions permitting.
Ariel Culpa, EDF’s man on the ground, said that aside from the livelihood aspect, the project also covered the regeneration of sargassum, a brown-colored seagrass that can help restore the marine ecosystem in the area, in fact it is an ongoing thesis study handled by a college student from San Carlos-Talamban, Cebu.
Sargassum, or samo in the Bisayan dialect, is known to be an effective carbon dioxide sequester and can also prevent the sea’s acidity, said Honey Grace Bayron, a native of neighboring Liloan town, who was the one conducting the study.
In due time, enough matured sagassum, which are secured also in a roe line, will be harvested “to undergo analysis for organic matter specificallt carbon” in a laboratory, a process to measure how it fared as a carbon sink, Bayron explained in a follow up chat message. (MMP/PIA8-Southern Leyte)
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